


Exceptions

by selftaughthuman



Series: Exceptions [1]
Category: Avatar: Legend of Korra
Genre: F/F, Light Bondage, Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-24
Updated: 2020-10-24
Packaged: 2021-03-09 07:20:10
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,132
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27179810
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/selftaughthuman/pseuds/selftaughthuman
Summary: Lately, Korra has been noticing something different about time spent with Asami. An extra drink at the end of the night leads to new experiences.
Relationships: Korra/Asami Sato
Series: Exceptions [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2095383
Kudos: 190





	Exceptions

**Author's Note:**

> This work is rather long for what it is and unbeta-ed, so please excuse any errors.

**Exceptions.**

“Feel like another?” She asks as the engine idles, not ready to let this night slip away or to abandon her girlfriend’s company.

A languid rotation of Asami’s head where it hovers in front of the rest is proceeded by a glance. Breaking across her tinted lips is a smirk, equal parts mischief and warning. It is a look that Korra absolutely loves, though she’s never said so. Her reaction to it is a mood of its own and every single time it’s bestowed upon her, she finds herself instantly certain she would go anywhere the other woman leads.

It was expressly stated earlier though, that there is a significant heap of paperwork upon Asami’s desk at home. It loomed over their evening, burdensome and inescapable. Korra would honestly be more concerned about causing further delays if there was not _always_ the specter of unaddressed responsibilities vying for their individual attention. Attempting to get ahead of their varied, yet equivalently time-consuming obligations…if they devote themselves to such a goal, it is fully possible they’d never see one another again. But that look on Asami’s face, that look that is only there sometimes, it plants a seed of cautious optimism.

“ _One_ more.” The stress placed on that first word becomes preemptive admonition, but those eyes reveal it’s mostly bluster. A single finger is nonetheless held in front of Korra like a snake’s tail. She snags it, her laugh a single burst of sound that provokes an answering smile.

Hands drop and then curl around each other. The contact remains until the Satomobile is stopped and parked. 

“Come on.” Characteristically inpatient, Korra all but drags Asami up the stairs to her apartment. A good-natured head shake, a puff of a noise, a gentle arching of a dark eyebrow, they each come in turn, but the engineer is following willingly, seems more amused than anything else. 

Korra is feeling so incredibly good right now even with purely un-sharable thoughts dancing inside her head. All evening she’s been diligently stuffing those thoughts behind the lopsided smile she can’t seem to banish. She’s pretty sure those thoughts have since taken up residence in her eyes. It’s quite possible that they’ve been dripping all over Asami since her second drink…every time she glanced her way since. Each one of those thoughts revolves around what nights like this have led to on a few fairly recent occasions. There’s room in Korra’s tolerance level for one more drink. It will be her limit, will take her right to the brink of that lovely space just before drunk, cradle her in this absolutely perfect amount of tipsy. It’s a place where stratospheric and half-formed ideas, ones that would usually float so high in her mind that she doesn’t notice or consider them, tumble down and crowd her consciousness. It’s a place of possibilities.

Because Asami releases her hand, because its dead weight slaps against her leg, she only now remembers that they’re standing outside her still locked front door. It’s been a full minute and it’s too long to explain away. Her girlfriend leans a lissome frame casually against the wall.

“Are you gonna let us in?” The engineer is watching with a questioning, yet entertained expression as her hand jump into action, groping for keys. 

Rolling her eyes at herself, throwing a crooked smile at her girlfriend, Korra finally locates them and unlocks the door. On entering, she shrugs away an outer layer and a scarf, something she seldom wears. This particular scarf belongs to Asami, but she commandeers it now and again when the weather turns, both because it pops her eyes and carries pleasant traces of perfume. Tossing the items onto a nearby chair, she kicks away her boots and socks next and skirts them toward the door, bare feet guiding. Immediately thereafter, she pads to her kitchen, off to a moment where she can allow her embarrassment over that whole front door thing a chance to dissipate. With her strong back stiff and toward Asami, she begins mixing them a drink. It’s a viable diversion since she promised one anyway.

Her houseguest takes a seat on Korra’s couch. She knows because she hears the swish of fabric-on-fabric, the distinct squeak of leather boots rubbing together. The apartment, the first space that was ever wholly her own, is tiny; a long rectangle where one can see the entire layout from any given point. The size is intentional. Her life has been spent with scant possessions collected in a single unified space: a room at her parents, a dormitory-style abode, or a single cell at a temple. Unlike her girlfriend, she does not have a lot of things and never has. Only a few mementos or sentimental items she squirrels away from prying eyes…no collectibles or souvenirs or display pieces really. Entire houses are impressive to her but feel unnecessary, cavernous, and ultimately extravagant. They don’t suit her and the only reason she spends significant time in one at all is that it belongs to Asami. There are times though she is not even sure that giant house suits its owner, most profoundly when she sees her girlfriend alone in some large room of the Sato family estate. The dimensions are such that they dwarf not just the engineer, but the furniture too…like a life-size diorama disrupted by unrealistic proportions. Perhaps the size suits Naga, but that proves her point more than it argues against it. This tiny place is perfect to her, the bungalow style cozy and calm. Her mind briefly visits memories of her beloved polar bear dog, ruminates on whether Naga is enjoying a little vacation with her parents, seeing the snow again. She imagines her bounding through fresh powder, digging and biting at snowflakes as they float down, traipsing happily about in the environment they were both born to.

Returning to the present, she frowns at the counter. The only issue with the size of her home in Republic City is that right now it does not afford her any real privacy to collect herself. Instead of the time in her kitchen helping, Korra finds herself wondering if she is being studied from across the room...if it is eyes or an imagined stare prickling her spine. Her head just will not stay in a single location for more than a few seconds tonight and she knows she’s rather clumsily walking the line between excited and edgy. Asami will undoubtedly notice soon if she hasn’t already. 

Her girlfriend is perceptive, has always been even before their relationship changed nearly half a year ago. Since their trip to the spirit world, their first kiss, confessed feelings…they’ve had sweetness between them and so much of it. Loving Asami feels different to her than loving Mako, more stable and their shared sweetness has an insular quality she didn’t think to expect, like it’s their own, a blanket thrown over the rest of the world. They’re lucky she thinks, to exist with love now suffusing their lives and their touches and their time.

Recently though, tonight included, there are times when something else suffuses things, hanging in their shared space…an infrequent though very present strangeness that bubbles up without warning. Korra is seldom even remotely nervous around Asami, except in these very specific bubbled instances. It’s always at night, always after longer separations, and is frustrating in some respects. She can’t quite put her finger on what feels dissimilar about these moments or why or what brings them on. The only thing she is sure of is that there is a sexual dimension to all of it. Sex is something she enjoys a great deal and has since her first dalliances with it. Her breadth of knowledge on the subject and its seemingly endless permutations may not match the typical city-dweller, but that has never bothered her until now. She feels as though having that knowledge might assist her in identifying whatever this is. The feeling that starts to build in these moments is maybe intrinsically reminiscent of her normal desires, but there’s a divergence she cannot understand. The unusual type of want that sneaks in on these specific occasions is acutely maddening. It is curling smoke or trapped steam inside her head, intangible and shapeless pressure. It’s an itchy, slippery, unidentifiable little creature that starts racing frantically up and down her body. Being near Asami with that look on her face, the one she’s been wearing all evening, the one that is a colder calmness, the one that makes those intense eyes lose their softness…it is an experience she doesn’t recognize in the context of their romantic coupling. It fills her with as much portent as desire.

It’s happened exactly five times, her girlfriend in this state and then a type of kiss that’s so unlike what they’ve shared thus far. It’s never been more than a kiss in these moments either. Only the first time it happened, about three months in, when Asami suddenly and forcefully pushed Korra against the front door of the Sato mansion, completely blindsided her. Though she has no objections to it on principle, she would never have kissed the other woman that way unprompted, never would’ve slammed her up against anything, because…well, she didn’t know why exactly. Did she worry it would be perceived as rude? Maybe. Was she concerned about hurting the other woman? Probably. It just made no sense to her either when Asami stopped, when her normally mellifluous voice bordered on indecent and simply told her to get home safe as if it was any normal kiss goodbye.

It has been confusing and exciting and impossible to navigate. She has never been able to successfully predict when it’s going to happen again either, only when the mood means it _could_. Now she finds herself senselessly, even embarrassingly craving it, each time they go for a night out together. She doesn’t want to be disappointed when they have something wonderful between them…but it’s no disappointment at all really. She just can’t banish remembrances of these kisses, thinks quite a bit about them when she’s alone. The questions are beginning to eat her alive…if those kisses will stay only kisses or if they’ll go further or if they will ever happen again at all. Lastly, she doesn’t know if they mean anything or if she’s inflating their importance. Maybe Asami just likes to take over kisses completely sometimes. She just doesn’t know and she supposes she could ask, but she’s afraid that will stop it from happening again, like a jinx of sorts. She sighs to herself, grabbing two glasses. The torture of it is almost enough to make her wish she’d never been kissed like that in the first place… _almost_. 

Ridiculous as it may be, there is some part of her that rages at Asami for this entire situation. It sometimes feels as if her girlfriend deliberately put these pulsating, impossible to define desires inside Korra’s brain. That these unresolved broody yearnings exist at all, that they neither pursue nor speak of any of this after, it is the ideal test of her self-control. She was and remains completely satisfied with their sex life… _but_ …that _but_ and the _whys_ , they pester her unceasingly. Perhaps it’s how intentional it all seems, the other woman cool-headedly reaching into her head and determining exactly what sort of kiss would be impossible to scratch out of memory. No kisses in Korra’s young life have ever distracted her the way these do. She still can’t find an actual reason why it is worlds apart from the experience of their usual kisses, has only ambiguities, and unfounded theory to work with. She loves Asami’s normal kisses…they’re warm, immersive, passionate, but never carry that ominous foreshadowing, a feeling that something unknown is about to burst forth. And even on those normal occasions when they get a little rougher with each other, she never feels like it’s not her place to push it further, not like she does now. 

By the third time she was kissed like that, Korra was certain that she wanted it to lead to more. It does feel oddly dangerous but unfortunately, it’s a sort of dangerous that Korra can’t stop finding enticing, moth to a flame attraction. She can’t envisage there’s any real threat there though, so where the danger comes from…

“What are you making over there?” Asami asks from across the room and it saves her from herself, having to answer. The depth to which she keeps losing herself in her mind tonight, it’s astounding.

“Nothing special. Just those things you like.” She makes those things Asami likes for that reason only. It is not a regular event, that she gets to do something for her highly self-sufficient girlfriend. Korra is indifferent to the mercifully uncomplicated drink made with a spirit from the Earth Kingdom and some herbal tonic. The taste recalls for her the smell of forests, like drinking a tree which she doesn’t mind. It’s an arguably unattractive description though, so she’s always kept it her own. 

Eventually, she takes a glance over her shoulder, while she adds a peel of citrus fruit. Asami’s elbow is resting on the back of the couch, a single finger balanced on her temple. She is not looking at Korra, but instead cogitates intensely, eyes on nothing in particular. If she had to hazard a guess, she would venture that work has taken over her beautiful girlfriend’s mind. Logistical problems with undetermined solutions, they are Asami’s perfect foil. 

It’s probably for the best right now because it affords her a moment to stare without worrying what her eyes would reveal. One of the least helpful parts of this is how well Asami seems to read them. Then again, this Avatar has never been known for her subtly. There’s a niggling worry that her girlfriend can somehow watch her mind’s machinations as clearly as a mover. It wouldn’t be a shock if the engineer has devised some sort of predictive algorithm for her inner thoughts, good as her girlfriend is at guessing them. Korra knows it can’t be true, but it feels true regardless and is worrisome because not only does her quick temper manufacture a great many transient thoughts unworthy of addressing, but her mind wanders over Asami too often.

It does not help her fickle focus, that the ways in which Korra notices her companion have expanded; the inhibitions her attentions once carried blown away on the breath of intimacy. It isn’t as if Korra didn’t realize her girlfriend was gorgeous before. The woman is something of a cynosure in the eyes of this city. Like so many others, Asami’s beauty is the first thing she noticed upon meeting her, despite all else she felt at the time. There is an unusual drama to her girlfriend’s look, the kind of attractive older men in the tribe would’ve called ‘striking’.

It is less the content and more the flavor of Korra’s thoughts, how it feels to think them, that is so completely altered. Now when her eyes meet the uniquely subdued verdancy of Asami’s, there can reside an aftertaste of romanticized nonsense, an uninvited piquancy of perversion, or notes of something new and unnamable. It’s frequently a single feature: her lips, her eyebrows, her nose in profile…that grabs Korra’s attention. At this moment, it’s black hair that suddenly distracts without prompting as it falls and covers half of a face. Her thoughts trace over the impossible neatness of waves, the silken smoothness, the shine which flashes in different hues. The highlights behave like sunlight on feathers her mind decides…like structural color. Korra has always loved that hair but in a covetous sort of way. She didn’t imagine being behind Asami and drawing it across shoulders just to expose a neck to her lips, nor did she picture the contrast of it against bared, porcelain skin.

Now her mind jumps to that skin and the fact that her girlfriend is the kind of pale which takes on color only with heightened emotion or from close-to-the-surface vasculature. Only blushes and veins change it. Not that Asami blushes often, neither of them does but the woman blushes less often than Korra certainly. That skin though, nostalgically reminds her of a winter landscape, especially when her girlfriend is naked and moonlit. That is another thought she keeps as her own. She’s uncertain if such descriptions, regardless of their intention, would read as flattery when spoken aloud. So instead, when the loveliness is enough that she can’t hold it internally, she tells Asami honest but safer things…that she’s beautiful, that she loves her eyes. She does not say that her skin with its subtly sloping curves and lightness, reminds her of an undisturbed snowdrift.

And these are the type of absurd musings that were practically absent in their years of friendship, new arenas of thought which maybe Korra should be shutting down entirely. That Asami would realize she considers things like this or how often, it terrifies her. She’s not sure they’re totally normal, would prefer them secret.

Seating herself on the corner of the couch, Korra stretches out muscular legs, crossing them at the ankle. They rest on top of the low table in front of them. It is an attempt at the ordinary, an attempt to hide the blooming anticipation she doesn’t want to explain. 

“I liked that place.” She says as she hands off one of the glasses. _That place_ is a new bar that opened, nestled beside an impressive rise of spirit vines. They went tonight on their own, time spent together, their friends an idea for next time. Two dragonfly bunnies had flown unconcernedly past them as they sipped.

Asami glances up, struck from her own wanderings and takes the drink with an appreciative smile. “Mm, definitely worth a second trip sometime.”

A faint semi-circular trace of lipstick lines the rim when a sip is taken and then the glass is set down. Korra idly wonders if it would stain her skin the same way if a move is made. Some of the shades do and some don’t, the flatter colors tending not to for whatever reason. She feels suddenly silly for thinking that. There is an unhinged quality to her tonight and this all might just be getting away from her. She worries that she might crack soon, that the desperation trapped inside will eek through and blaze from her chest like a beacon. Her emotions, things that won’t leave her head, they have a history of gushing from her when resisted. 

“I’m kinda glad we decided not to meet them.” It is a line cast, to see if Korra can hook herself onto a new train of conversation before she decompensates over the nothing that is currently happening. Taking a sip of her own drink, she pictures what Mako, Bolin, Opal, and the others must be up to right now. It is a harmless resting place for her mind in any case. 

“Why's that?” Asami asks curiously.

She considers if her girlfriend is playing or if she truly doesn’t sense the charge that everything is carrying. It could be something she’s generating on her own, perception warped by wanting, but she doesn’t think so. The honest answer to the question would be that Korra would like whatever is left of tonight to stay theirs if only to see if anything interesting will come of it. But honest words are not her friend right now, not when she feels as though her eyes and face reveal enough already.

“You know how Bolin gets. I’d be the biggest mess tomorrow.” Is what she chooses to say, and it is close to true. She can drink Bolin under the table on a bad night, but that’s immaterial to the message and Asami’s soft laugh is a small comfort.

Another part of what bites on nerves in these ticks of time is her unreliable ability to read her girlfriend in return. She is decent enough at it with others, not great, but for some reason with Asami, she doesn’t often see things she’s not shown. Thankfully, her companion is generally a forthright person, open about her feelings, expressive the majority of the time besides, but the woman certainly can maintain a high level of control over her presentation when needed. Korra supposes that is important in business, but there are instances that it trickles into their personal life and blocks her unintentionally. That problem has seeped into these mystifying kisses since her girlfriend doesn’t always even when the ambiance is identical. As such, she can only wait for Asami to make her choice about how these nights will go. It’s not a comfortable position to be in, especially when Korra has the baseline patience of a four-year-old on their birthday. She doesn’t know what the criteria are, how the ‘kiss’ or ‘no kiss’ is decided. She has no map of her girlfriend’s thought processes, but when she pictures the inside of her head, it is comically filled with a complicated array of clockwork and gears. There is some guilt associated with that image, because Asami is empathetic and kind in a way that machines never could be, in a way that surpasses most other people she’s met. Her girlfriend is also incredibly intelligent, logical, and her internal workings can be as enigmatical to Korra as those of her inventions.

None of this is exactly shocking because the other woman makes a habit of being an exception. How well she balances her professional obligations for someone so young, the strength of her convictions, her personal interests, her fighting skills, even her being the first woman to catch Korra’s eye. Asami has routinely surprised her for as long as they’ve known one another, and the fact she considers herself an exception too, that many others do as well… it is a connecting thread of sameness between them. 

She becomes aware of her girlfriend’s examining and inquisitive look, of an index finger circling the top of a drink absentmindedly. An otherworldly drone echoes suddenly from Asami’s glass, draws both their eyes briefly, and arrests any further movement of that finger. Korra realizes then she was being entirely too quiet and thinking entirely too much. She’s gone and made the other woman suspicious.

Nervousness creeps back in and she wonders whether Mako ever had this issue with Asami. She briefly considers talking to him, before the realization of just how ridiculous that notion is deservedly slaps her in the face. As those thoughts sail across her mind, she blurts out a question that must’ve mixed itself in among her manic considerations.

“Did you and Mako break up just because of me?” She’s horrified by herself for a moment, at the quiet shock on the face of her girlfriend. “God, sorry!! I don’t know why I said that.”

A small ghost of a smile emerges before Asami’s head tilts, spilling dark locks over her shoulder. “I mean…you two kissing definitely didn’t help anything, but that’s not the only reason we aren’t together now.” 

Korra nods, lips quirking as she fidgets with her glass. “Mako and I fought a lot. Too much actually.” She loved him but they loved like two bulls running at each other, trying to cuddle with horns out. It just didn’t work. Making herself a little more comfortable, she only becomes aware that she’s chewing at her lower lip when she finds dry skin there. That should be fixed, she acknowledges as she stews in regret over opening her mouth. 

Glancing off toward the window, at a view that is nothing but the broadside of a building overtaken with vines, Asami pauses before speaking. “We didn’t fight much.”

Korra nods anxiously at the vague answer, trying to settle into the conversation. Her and Asami talking in private, tipsy or not, kissing or no, tension aside…it usually feels special, a privilege of their closeness with each other. This feels different, as though she intruded somehow. Asking about their mutual ex-boyfriend four years after the fact and while they’ve started something with each other was not the smartest of topics, in fairness. “We don’t have to talk about it.”

A delicate hand taps restlessly, another drink is taken, and then the response is direct. “I _thought_ we talked about this in the car that time. Is there something else you wanted to know?”

She cannot fathom why she continues down this path, like speeding up when she sees a wall rather than hitting the brake. “I kinda hoped it wasn’t that I ruined it.” 

In a rare moment, Korra sees the very things the other woman is feeling all over her face. Varying hues of confusion, annoyance, and curiosity with a bit of hurt hiding in the shadows, it’s all there. “If it was just you, don’t you think we would’ve worked it out and gotten together the last time you were away?” Asami says quietly, but with a firmness that disinvites argument.

“Yeah, that’s probably true.” Korra nods to herself, hands running along her uncovered arms, as she crosses them. Her hair is in her eyes, but she doesn’t brush it away because she wants to hide, if only for another second. There are aspects of how she handled that situation which feel so selfish and impulsive now, though they felt right at the time. “Look, I’m being an idiot. It was just stupid leftover guilt. Sorry.” Murmurous words roll over and around each other, racing marbles across her tongue. “But I mean, it worked out in the end though, right? Because us…so, yeah.” The clumsy attempt to salvage decrescendos to a blended mumble and laugh, but there is no smile returned, only a confused look.

“I’m not sure what brought this on or why you would still feel guilty about any of it four years later,” She’s not sure either, feels very much in trouble. “But…time does make some things a bit more obvious.” The engineer pauses, closes her eyes. “I don’t know. I used to fall for people so quickly. Mako and I…” Asami’s gaze falls to the floor and reshapes while Korra stays silent, thinks over what was revealed. “We…didn’t like the same things. And that was okay with me back then, but I think it would’ve started to bother me eventually…I know it would’ve.”

The statement throws her for a loop because even with the jealousy she felt then, there was never a point where she thought that Mako should be with her because Asami and he were incompatible. It was a simplistic dislike of their relationship, that the other woman was dating a boy she wanted to date and nothing more. “I guess I didn’t really have much in common with him either, looking back.”

There is a self-conscious smile, and the other woman’s mystique, the last vestiges of earlier mood fall away. “Guess that was a little too subtle,” Asami admits awkwardly. “…I wasn’t talking about mutual interests, Korra.” When eyes are lifted, they are waiting for something.

The recognition is slow to dawn. “…oh…Oh!”

Of all the reasons that Asami could possibly have supplied, sexual incompatibility was not one she really considered. She doesn’t have a tremendous amount of dating experience and definitely had not encountered that obstacle. Her and Mako hadn’t done much or often, but it had all been fine if slightly less practiced. The core truth was that Korra did not fully comprehend how that sort of incompatibility occurred unless one party was bad at it. Not that she was an expert, but she personally would vouch for both. It is difficult to fully wrap her mind around the foreignness of it as a concept.

She considers if this is a circumstance in which her innocence filters her reaction. “What…uh…”

“Can we just say he wasn’t much of a listener and leave it at that?” The forcibly nonchalant response, that it interrupts and is paired with a searching stare over the top of a glass…it is crystal clear that Asami no longer wants to speak about Mako if she ever did at all. The other woman puts her drink down after a long sip and sighs, before throwing her a look. “And don’t apologize again. You look like you’re going to.”

“No more apologizing, got it,” Korra says unconscientiously. “Good to know listening is important to you, though.” It’s cautious and sobered because she does want to know if she can do anything better.

She worries only after the fact about how her words might be received, but the comment is thankfully interpreted as she intended, a new though related branch of conversation rather than an unwelcome push in the same direction. 

“It’s not a skill everyone wants to learn.” The answer feels intended for more than strictly literal interpretation, as does that smile. It comes as an elbow is propped on a knee, as Asami rests her chin on her hand. She’s unzipping her boots and placing them neatly to the side of the couch, removing her socks and tucking legs beneath her. It ratchets Korra down about ten notches. Nothing has gone too poorly it would seem since her girlfriend is getting comfortable.

Her relieved brain immediately turns itself to those last words, flips them over and over. It’s exactly the sort of comment which burrows in. It makes her even more curious about those kisses. She’s chewing on it, trying to dissect it. There is no context she can find within her and Asami’s love life…not for the importance of _listening,_ not one that fits the kiss as far as she can see. Concentrating on her drink as a measure of distraction, tasting it before swallowing, Korra allows herself a moment of self-congratulation. The balance of it is what impresses…she used to be truly terrible at making drinks. 

“How’s the starving artist doing?” Asami’s tone is nuanced, as it always is when referring to Kuvira. She assumes it is meant to disguise the residual resentment her girlfriend still justifiably feels toward the imprisoned woman. It seems they’re going to continue with the theme of discussing people who awkward their conversation.

The label comes because the once Great Uniter has unexpectedly found a more subdued hobby than world domination, has started painting in jail, and displays an unexpected level of skill with it. Asami knows that Korra went to see the woman yesterday. Her girlfriend said nothing when she came home with a small watercolor landscape of Zaofu. She’d left it on a side table when she went to shower. Twenty minutes later, a descent of the stairs revealed the engineer studying the miniature canvas, her shoulders square and gaze honed as though the picture itself could not be trusted. Korra knows that the kinship she feels with Kuvira, the reflections that she cannot shake, they are not something her girlfriend likes to think on. However, in typical Asami fashion, she voices her concerns then remains respectful and ultimately supportive. Visiting Kuvira, though it does cause a hint of tension, is needed reassurance as to the permanency of change and her girlfriend understands that.

“Still starving,” Korra answers finally, unperturbed.

Red lips form a perfect curve, and Asami is undoubtedly going to say something she’d only say after a drink or two. “So you’re not feeding her?” She remarks with noticeably exaggerated seriousness, the curl of lips ruining the effect.

Despite herself, she lets out a hearty bark of a laugh before she shoves at the other woman.

“She can feed herself!” Korra says, astonished the thought would even cross her girlfriend’s mind.

“Such a tease.” Asami reprimands puckishly. Her girlfriend is undeniably joking, but relief is betrayed by the slackening of shoulders. Then she realizes how the gifted painting might’ve appeared. It occurs to her suddenly that there may be some jealousy there. Has she been selfish in still visiting Kuvira? She’s not at all sure, but other comments made rise to the surface of her brain. She stores the possibility away, a thing to be more mindful of.

She doesn’t respond, but ‘ _you should talk’_ is barely held on the tip of her tongue. Instead, Korra gives an expression that she hopes is plain enough to say that but foggy enough to deny it. There’s a reaction, but the intended meaning is lost on her, and she watches the engineer’s lips for any other clues. They unsurprisingly offer none, though they do part slightly. They have a plush, soft appearance and Korra no longer has to speculate as to whether the look matches the feel. Her thoughts turning sensual again make a sigh of nothing. It provokes mild chagrin which grows as she realizes she’s unabashedly fixated on that mouth. She should really stop staring, but her brain disobediently ignores her. It’s busy analyzing the slow return of that inscrutable aura surrounding her girlfriend. 

“You keep staring at my mouth tonight,” Asami says, exploding any remaining speck of delusion that Korra can veil her desires. It does not sound like much more than an unconcerned if interested observation. There’s more intrigue than reprimand in it. Korra doesn’t feel the least bit casual over it though as they lock eyes. The energy between them, maybe in the air…wherever it originates from, is powerful. She feels the weight of it mightily. 

“Should I be sorry?” She asks, making her voice as neutral as she can, hoping the effort doesn’t show. 

Even though those kisses have been running through her mind all night, feel a breath away right now, Korra is sure she shouldn’t initiate. She has no idea where the notion arises since she really really wants to, and she’s initiated countless times before. Yet again she can’t say why it feels any different. Her resistance is instinctual though and belongs to no single action on Asami’s part. Still, she trusts it as she would any other primal knowledge. There is a growing, begrudging acceptance in her bones… that she is not just attracted to, but also the teensiest bit intimidated by her girlfriend in this state. Absurdly that rush of fear only makes her more enamored of the other woman, that she can cause such an uncharacteristic response in her. Tonight, her girlfriend feels the embodiment of a compliment from a gorgeous stranger, and Korra finds herself befittingly dumbfounded.

That delicious half-smile helps nothing and neither does the sideways glance Asami is giving her. They are both woefully knowing. “Only if you weren’t begging for a kiss.” 

“Begging?!” A scoff erupts because the statement abrades, transmutes a small portion of humiliation to indignation…adds a drop of offense into the dizzying cocktail in Korra’s brain. She’s never begged for that kind of thing…ever.

The stare she receives positively dares her to argue. She doesn’t because of how the other woman is holding herself, that atypically antagonistic self-confidence that is so unlike the Asami she usually sees when they’re alone. Korra is entranced even as it digs beneath her skin. She may not know which way to move, but her girlfriend does not seem to have the same problem. With a consciousness of decision that paralyzes Korra, Asami stands. The few feet between them is closed, and the humming electric beat of her skin grows as the distance shrinks. She glances up and the taller woman looks down, a sculpted eyebrow rising again. It’s slow and should in no way be as devastatingly shocking as it, the sight of the engineer straddling her.

“Definitely begging.” Asami asserts as she places outstretched arms lazily on either side of Korra’s head, hands dangling over the back of the couch. Her girlfriend is being a bit of an ass, and she maybe deserves it over her conversational choice earlier, but she kind of hates that she doesn’t hate it.

Not much time is allotted for dwelling though because Asami’s lips don’t wait for a response. Any remaining annoyance is eaten right up by very possessive kisses. Reflexively Korra is response over reciprocation…she always is in these moments. Her eyelids flutter and muscles harden, and she can hear the blood coursing through her temples. She has no idea what’s steering her girlfriend tonight, but this is much more consuming than the last few times. Her hands are positively longing for the smoothness of skin beneath them. Instinct hammers inside her head again, a thought that right now she shouldn’t. Maybe it is only that her senses have been ground too thin by near-constant confounding. Either way, she discounts the feeling this time, lets fingers slip beneath a jacket and shirt. Her hands draw a completely novel sound.

“Mmno.” The breathy vibration of a word melts into kisses which never stop.

"What?” The question is mostly breath and unimportant really. As long as Asami keeps kissing her like she has something to prove, she doesn’t care if she gets an answer. Slipping her hands higher, she only halts when the other woman pulls back, and is it for air? She hopes so because the wildness hanging in the back of green eyes, it winds her tighter than she is comfortable with.

“Korra…” Her girlfriend is playfully scolding, hands steadily traveling to capture her wrists. Slowly, Asami brings them away and they’re pressed backward against the couch cushion. “I said ‘no’.” That tone of voice opposes simplistic words that Korra is having an inexcusably difficult time processing. “Didn’t I?”

“I, yeah…uh yes?” The tripping over her own reply, it agitates and whacks her into uncommon timidity. Asami remains thoroughly unhelpful as she leans steadily closer. The weight of her girlfriend’s body is all but plastering her to the couch as their chests graze. If Korra’s eyes were any wider, they would spill clean out of her head. 

“Then…” The single syllable is air against the lower half of her face. “What are you doing?” There’s the faintest smell of citrus on Asami’s breath from the drink she made her.

“…I can’t touch you?” Korra asks with less strength than she’d like because she’s not sure what to think if that’s really where this going. The pitch of her voice has shot up, unhelpfully emphasizing her utter lack of footing. She feels alarmingly virginal all of the sudden. It’s a thought she buries deeply and quickly, trying to keep it from the woman on top of her. A hand against her cheek draws Korra’s attention and for a moment, she wonders at the tender gesture which despite its familiarity, feels incongruous. 

“Not tonight, okay? Not without asking first.” Asami says into the shell of an ear, before places lips there. It pulls at Korra’s scalp furiously. She can’t tell if her girlfriend is totally serious, can’t tell why the air between them seems thinner in her lungs, as though the oxygen has been sucked away. She doesn’t want to show that she’s just barely afloat. Lips then move down, drag hotly across her neck and she is actually squirming

“…I-uh…am I supposed to ask before or after I beg to kiss you?” She wrenches out jokingly, her competitiveness the only remaining functional part of her. She’s attempting to get ahead of the far too apparent effect this is having, to show she can keep up. She’s failing miserably because the tumbling is too fast. Steadiness only comes when the other woman sits back again.

“After would make more sense...” Asami says it so matter-of-factly while unzipping her jacket, tossing it to a nearby chair, and then staring down at her. That razored focus knocks every thought out of Korra’s head. She still somehow manages to cobble together a facsimile of cockiness made from equal parts performance and self-preservation.

At least it’s easier to find words without the other woman nibbling on her pulse point. “How’s _that_ fair? I’m not even the one who started this!” 

Asami’s eyes roll at the smug protest and she looks away. Some brief flicker is inside them, but it is too short-lived for identification. Silence hangs thick between them before a breath gathered seems to right the engineer.

With a straightforward glance that again dares Korra to argue, she gives her a retort in kind. “We should probably cut it here anyway. I really do need to get home. For the record though...you weren't exactly complaining.” 

“I’m not, Asami, but…” Korra snaps with a touch of annoyance, trying to scoop up some dignity. She releases a heavy sigh which releases quite a bit more. “What’s with the whole kissing me like this and stopping thing? It’s not the first time you’ve done it.”

Her girlfriend’s voice, when it does come, stays low. “More is just not a good idea right now. It won’t be how it usually is.” It’s such a dramatic explanation…Korra finds herself wanting to say so but she doesn’t. Her hard-fought self-restraint won’t let her, not after the way her girlfriend averted her eyes. She’s not truly thankful for the words she ate until another few seconds pass and she realizes it likely would’ve shut this down completely. Something is most definitely amiss and she’s not sure why she didn’t notice it before. 

“I don’t know what that’s supposed to mean,” Korra admits, not surprised that she doesn’t get a response. It was not a question really. The quiet between them again seems to stretch on forever. The tension scrapes her skin raw enough to break the silence again. “You’re driving me a little nuts with this.”

“Then I won’t do it anymore but I’m serious about tonight, Korra. I don’t think it’s a good idea.” Asami tells her pretty much nothing with that addition, only wounds her slightly and she doesn’t know how things keep going so sideways.

It’s a strain to sound anywhere near as unruffled as she’d like to. The reality is that Korra doesn’t know where her girlfriend is with this and anything she might tell herself is pure story-making. “…Am I doing something wrong? You’re kinda starting to scare me a bit.” Vulnerability shows through because maybe she’s handling this badly and she doesn’t fully realize her mistakes. It wouldn’t be the first time.

“ _And_ that’s what I was worried about.” It’s another strange response, as is the look which accompanies it. Korra remains lost and she’s beginning to dearly wish that she’d kept her mouth shut when she was told not to touch, that she’d merely allowed Asami to guide this along whatever current she pleased…that she ignored her pride and let it drown in the waves. At least then whatever was happening still would be.

She opts for a breezy swipe at her own sexual inexperience, an attempt to diffuse. “I’ll be honest, I don’t really know what we’re talking about here, but it’s probably not the first I’ve ever heard of it. I’ve read books and stuff and how different could whatever it is be?” She finishes lamely and with a little grin, but it is again not returned.

“Nothing is the same in person.” Asami offers without any levity, only a creeping and wary despondency that darkens their mood. 

The response is another small insult to Korra’s ego. She wonders suddenly if she’s trying too hard, pressuring the other woman. The idea that her girlfriend might think that makes her feel like an idiot. “Fair enough.” 

“Hey.” Asami is touching her, looking not at but into her with those impossibly green eyes suddenly all softness. Her eyebrows draw together this time, a question and as unexpectedly as before, she kisses Korra. It’s exactly the same as the first kiss they ever shared, sweet and sincere. “I love us.” Those words spoken so gently catch her off-guard right before the other woman’s voice boomerangs back to something less revealing. “I don’t want to ruin anything.”

That simply doesn’t track for Korra. In no scenario she imagines on the increasingly infrequent occasions when apprehension and negative self-talk trick her into doubt, is Asami _ever_ the one that ruins _anything_. “You won’t. I trust you.”

She’s rewarded for that with another quick kiss before an eyebrow raises at her yet again. “That’s sweet, Korra, but you’re not even sure what I want. Don’t you think blind agreement is a risky move?”

She plants a kiss of her own, one that is defiant and reads like a counterpoint. “Nope, ‘cause if it’s anything like what you’ve been doing, then it’s obviously a ‘yes’.” 

She is given the most skeptical of appraisals, but it doesn’t stop Asami from bringing lips back to hers. It’s slower, heavier, unrushed and the heels of the taller woman’s hands dig into muscular thighs this time. It’s cadenced, like some giant housecat kneading. It’s almost enough to push Korra fully out of the confusion she’s dwelling in. She would fall into this wholly if Asami wasn’t keeping alive her self-consciousness by avoiding a direct explanation. It’s impossible for her to let it be. 

“…are you gonna tell what you mean now? Or…” She barely manages and Asami disregards her completely. “…mmsami…” Still she’s ignored. “Come on! Just tell me already.” She mutters between kisses, and the woman bites her lip…hard. Her body jumps at the tiny flash of pain and it breaks the kiss completely. She’s trying to hide her breathlessness, licking at that bottom lip and glaring. “Ouch!! What was that for?!”

The other woman is running her hands through her own hair, exasperatedly combing it away from her forehead. How Asami has any right to that when she bit her…actually bit her on purpose, Korra has no idea. “Would it be too much to ask you to just forget it?” Her girlfriend throws out, managing to sound both irritated and entertained at once.

Korra flips her hands in the air. “At this point, yeah. Kinda.”

Their silence is an ocean before Asami’s gentled gaze washes them both ashore. “If I explain it, will you leave it alone and let me make out with you in peace?”

Pretending that what was just said didn’t make her clench her thighs would be stupid. She’s dead certain that her girlfriend felt that, but she rallies and gathers up some boldness anyway. “Deal.”

Sitting up, Asami rests her full weight on a pair of legs, diverting her eyes for a moment. She drags a hand along her neck before speaking, resting fingers behind an ear. It’s maybe the only time they’ve been in this situation, that Korra has seen even a smidge of nervousness. “When I feel like this, I only want it a certain way, if that makes any sense.”

The answer is a little perplexing still. “What...like…sex?”

“Yes, like sex.” She can feel the warmth gathering at the base of her neck and it’s just as much because of the expression she’s being sent as hearing the other woman say the word ‘sex’. It’s ridiculously distracting for some reason. “And the way I want it…” The quiet comment manages to snare her attention. “It’s just a lot for some people.” 

Something from their previous conversation clicks into place. “…Mako?”

There is a barely perceptible nod. “He didn’t react well…but he wasn’t the only one.”

Korra can’t possibly imagine what would be so much that a guy… or girl for that matter…would get freaked out by someone who looks the way Asami does, but she doesn’t say that. She knows intuitively it won’t be helpful, would not be something she’d want to hear tables turned. “Well, what if I just want you, and I’m okay trying whatever?”

The stare she receives is searching and agitated. It takes her unaware because she meant it to be complimentary. “I don’t think anyone feels that way. Everyone has tastes and this is a pretty specific one.”

Another response she can’t totally unpack, but she at least can discern that Asami isn’t willing to believe she’s open to whatever this is yet. Insisting upon it is her initial impulse, but she knows by now that’s unlikely to convince, so she chooses another route. Maybe if she can get details, she can better present her case. Maybe she is also having some trouble ridding herself of the drive to hear Asami talk about her wants, maybe say the word ‘sex’ again. “Specific how?” 

Words are being very consciously chosen right now. “Sometimes,” She watches the silent selection interestedly. “I just want to be the one to control things.” 

The answer is anticlimactic for Korra. Anyone who truly knows Asami knows the woman handles herself, doesn’t appreciate being underestimated as often as she is. Even if she hadn’t been able to see that, these kisses are pretty upfront about it. 

“Yeah, I noticed.” The response is a tad more sarcastic and less teasing than intended. Green eyes instantly communicate the striking of a rather sensitive chord.

“If you really do want this to happen, you’re not helping yourself.” Asami is studying her very carefully as she says this, lips a straight line. 

She’s chastised and changes her approach. “Sorry, but If you’re talking about you being a little aggressive…” It’s cautious because Korra is not certain it’s wise to persist in talking, given how well she’s been doing so far. “That doesn’t exactly _bother_ me, Asami.” It’s meant to reassure, meant to show that she has no problem with anything being articulated.

“Mm, I can tell.” That smile, why does it make her want to nibble her girlfriend’s lips? It only adds to her annoyance at the confident answer. “That’s not really what I’m saying though.” Korra shrinks as this retreats further from comprehension again.

Looking up at Asami she is almost pleading now. “Then help me understand, okay? I want to.” 

There is no response for a long time, but hands eventually move, tracing firmly down her forearms. “I know you’re curious about what it would feel like if we took this thing further. That you want me to.” Asami spreads fingers across her palms, weaves them with hers. She denies nothing, after all ‘curious’ is a serious understatement. “I won’t lie and say that I’m not curious about it too. I definitely am.” Korra’s arms are lifted as the admission sinks in. “About so many things.” Her girlfriend says around a sigh. “Some nights I can’t stop thinking about it. The sounds you would make, how far you’d let me take this, whether I could actually get you to beg…” And _that_ makes her burn all over, makes stomach muscles tighten and shudder. That Asami would even think to say something like that is amazing to her. “It’s why I keep kissing you like this, but I’m not talking about whether you mind me being a little…” Her arms are pushed down behind her head with a muffled thud as they hit the back of the couch. “ _Aggressive_.” And this is stirring her up, starting to wreak internal havoc. Spikes of excitement are leapfrogging any unease. Wrists are brought together and held down, one on top of the other. Asami’s left hand is now trailing up her side, beneath her shirt. “When I said I want to control things, that wasn’t quite true. I guess it’s more that I want to control _you_.”

Staying with the conversation is harder than she would like, and her thoughts run from her each time she reaches for them. _Control her_ … it’s again not something she has context for, but she has external ideas flitting about her head, none of which she is sure apply. “Why…um…” Her throat is cleared. “Why'd you say it’s a bad idea?” She asks, voice shakier than she would like.

Asami hesitates. “It’s just a lot to ask. It’s not even really something you _can_ ask for. And with you, it isn’t like I can just hold your arms down and pretend I don’t know how much stronger you are than me. You’d have to let me, to want to let me…I would _need_ that to turn you on too. And that…it’s a hard stop because it either does or doesn’t.” Korra lips part, moving wordlessly before she submitted to her own speechlessness and nods. “Sometimes I feel like you could want it like I do, but then I’m not sure. Sometimes it’s me too…I don’t want…” Fingernails dance across her ribs as her girlfriend sighs, losing her words. It’s mindless fidgeting but remains critically distracting. “I know we’re somehow talking about doing this right now like we actually might, but I can live a perfectly happy life without this, Korra. I don’t want anything to come between us.” Asami’s face is full of earnestness.

“It won’t.” She’s very sure of that and feels like she mostly understands, is able to offer a small grin as she rests her hands loosely on the back of her head. “I think we should try it!”

Only skepticism greets her. “I don’t need you to do this for me."

She shakes her head, chewing her dry lip briefly, reflectively wishing she’d had a chance to remedy that. “I’m not. I want to.”

“Korra,” Asami’s eyes are nothing short of devouring. There is still distrust there, maybe more worry than distrust. “…are you sure?”

Her answer is quick and resolute. “Definitely.”

The tiny tremble to Asami’s hands and she is only now noticing it. Her girlfriend notices her noticing and rubs them together as if the unsteadiness could be wrung from them. “You’d have to promise to tell me if you’re not okay with something… like immediately.”

“Easy.” That is a small request and one that she is unequivocally sure she can abide by, but the anxiety she senses off her lover still makes her uncertain. “Hey, um…if I killed the mood, I get it. It doesn’t have to be tonight.”

“You didn’t kill it, but…” Asami’s fingers reach tentatively to caress the structured lines of bone that form her jaw, hand open. “We might need to build it back up a little.”

Her girlfriend’s hand travels back in a smooth glide to the apex of her throat and Korra’s eyes pop wide. A thumb and forefinger drag along the underside of her chin, securing a light hold on her face. Her head is tilted toward her own shoulder. Air and lips return to the exposed part of her neck while that hand stays, holds her head at an angle. It’s not even close to the same feeling with the warmth of Asami’s fingers, the back surface of them brushing against her throat. The surprised noise that boils out of her is something between a groan and a sigh. And then her girlfriend is shifting closer, making every inch of her feel far too alive. Asami’s mouth takes hers again. She’s being kissed with that hand still very there. It’s a slow and demanding sort of kiss where Asami’s lips direct the slide of her own. Her girlfriend takes possession of her wrists with her opposite hand, fitting them together and gripping them. The space between them is erased in a protracted press while she lets herself be held down. When that mouth pulls away, after time vanishes in the headiness of it, the other woman’s exhales are for the first time tonight noticeably and provokingly shuddering.

When Asami gazes at her again, her irises only rings and nearly eclipsed by dark pupils. “I’m going to need my hands back, but these…” There is push to her wrists for emphasis. “Will need to stay where they are.” Both of Asami’s hands fall away, leaving her arms free, but gathered behind her head still. “Think you can you manage that?”

Korra’s eyes narrow, as the other woman sits up straight. It feels like a step further into this, but she’s ready even if her voice doesn’t sound like her own when she replies. “Yeah, I think I can handle it.” 

“We’ll see.” Her girlfriend says in the oddest tone Korra has ever heard her use. 

Asami rests in her lap, posture relaxing atop her thighs as that gaze begins roaming over the lines of her body. She’s accustomed to coy glances, appreciative sentiments, but this outright staring is new. Not just staring, calculating, formulating. Korra swallows hard, watching very deliberate movements. Two hands are pushed beneath her shirt, running up her rib cage again and sewing desire along her spine. The fabric is lifted over her head without ceremony. It glides across her wrists, which remain obediently where they were placed, tumbles to the floor. More roaming eyes that rake her skin and the tightness in her muscles is a second heartbeat, out of synch with the pounding organ in her chest.

Nimble fingers commence the work of unbuttoning a shirt now, and Korra shoves her hands harder into the couch back, temptation surging. It has to be on purpose, the prolonging of this, the constant eye contact and it’s irritatingly affecting. She realizes she’s chewing the inside of her lip, gawking. Not only the blouse is shrugged away, but Asami discards her bra as well. There’s implicit permission to look, she’s seen those perfect breasts many times before, but being unable to move her hands ices her up. They’re literally inches from her face too, swaying lightly as the taller woman shifts. Asami is gathering her hair into a loose ponytail and gazing down at her, clearly assessing something else.

“Lean forward.” A little hesitantly, she does.

Her own bra, a very different style, is removed with that same agonizingly measured touch, abandoned to the floor. Her skin reacts, whether it’s to Asami’s eyes or the air, Korra doesn’t know. All she does know is that she and her body both are keenly aware of her girlfriend’s eyes. Another kiss transforms the crackle of energy between them into something richer. A tongue tracing along her bottom lip, dipping into her mouth, just barely caressing her own…and they’re suddenly half-naked. As good as it is, she can’t lose herself in it completely because Asami’s breasts…they keep sweeping across hers as the woman presses into her. Their nipples keep brushing against each other; addles and yanks at her concentration. Her girlfriend doesn’t seem to notice it in the slightest. Korra though is excruciatingly aware of how uncomfortably hard hers are getting, air jetting out her nose nearly every time it happens, her little gasps consumed in the commanding press of that mouth. She wishes, not for the first time, that her own breasts were less sensitive. The obtrusively present pangs of desire that it readily causes in the pit of her pelvis, how near to effortless it is to entice that response…it makes her want to curl up like a bug or pounce on the other woman. Maybe one then the other. She doesn’t intend to cave so readily though, especially when Asami knows this about her and when the hanging insinuation she can’t even manage her own hands is still tweaking out her competitive streak. She wonders if her girlfriend can tell she’s dying a little, because when she draws away…there’s another of those knowing glances. 

Her nervousness is given no room to grow, thankfully. Green eyes are turning away from hers and fixing very obviously on Korra’s mouth, perhaps in mimicry of her own earlier misbehavior. After reaching a hand outward, cool nails smoothly track her lips. Her girlfriend’s hand lifts and fingertips take their turn. She’s left to puzzle over this new twist.

“The last time I kissed you like this,” Asami begins, still tracing, stroking, leaving prickling remnants of sensation. “Your lips were a little swollen after. Maybe because we don’t usually kiss for so long…” And then softly, deliberately, her bottom lip is dragged down, the edge of her teeth grazed in the process. The inside of her lip rests against the pad of her girlfriend’s thumb, chin held on an index finger. Asami’s voice, and what she’s doing…Korra doesn’t have the slightest idea how to respond. “I just kept wondering what they would feel on my fingers, what your tongue would feel like, how warm your mouth would be…” The heat gathering in her body, how keyed up she feels listening…it’s almost reminiscent of the build before she bends, so much so that anxiety stabs at her, a fear she might accidentally, but she’s long past such things. Strands of experiential deviation coax her away from her concerns. It’s only an echo of something about to crest, but still, she closes her eyes to center herself. That is until Asami quietly volunteers what she does next. “I think I’d like to watch you do that for me.”

Korra finds it impossible to believe that her girlfriend means right now. She nearly asks, but it’s indisputable. Asami definitely means now and it’s a small revelation, a conceptual shift about what was meant by control. She’d perhaps naively pictured her girlfriend inserted into preconceived notions…using more force, rawness and roughness, hands behind her back, a dirty word or two. But asking her to do something like suck her fingers while she sits topless on Korra’s lap watching her do it…all of that while the Avatar obediently keeps hands behind her own head just because she was told to? It is a very different direction than she assumed. Some small part of her wants to be offended, and that part also wants to want to refuse, but she is not and she does not. Instead, she finds herself questioning if that is really something that would excite the other woman. That she could possibly make Asami feel even a little of this flinch-inducing heat, it makes her fiercely curious again.

She doesn’t know though, how her girlfriend would want this to be or if it should be done any particular way. It’s not something she’s tried before, even thought to try. Korra’s mind swirls, then concentrates on that thumb. It’s still resting against her lip and she is unsure how to start. She inhales meditatively before the tip of her tongue flicks along the tip of a finger. She’s forgotten this bit of her girlfriend’s skin is lightly calloused at the sides from years of fiddling with gears and tools. The texture surprises as she tilts her head a little. Only so the other woman’s thumb slips into a more accessible position, so she can take it in her mouth, does. The glimpse of heightened arousal Korra catches in the quickening rise and fall of Asami’s chest, it melts remaining reservations. Her girlfriend’s gaze is pointed, but her forehead is cinched, and she covers her mouth with the back of her opposite hand. Korra half expects her to shove her fingers toward her, into her mouth, some dominant display, but she doesn’t. That hand stays just shy of totally relaxed, enough rigidity to hold itself in its current arrangement but no more.

She blinks slowly, the languorous movement reciprocally gelling her jittery thoughts. Self-consciousness seeps in, the internal accusation that she has no business doing this, that she has no idea how to make this pretty. It’s a bizarre thought that she smothers before it amplifies whatever insecurity birthed it. She wants to try this…she repeats the phrase in her head until she feels its truth because she knows she’s prone to quit anything she doesn’t excel at immediately. She relaxes instead, calms her mind, and thinks on what this feels like as she draws her tongue fully along the underside of that thumb. How thin and small that finger is, it stands out. The barest tightening of her lips forces it backward. She can manipulate it easily, can wrap or fold the flat of her tongue around it completely. When she does, when she tries, eyelids which were hooded moments before, snap upward, the hand in front of Asami’s mouth twitching. Alternately smooth and rough fingertips tickle as they pass, nails all smoothness against her tongue, knuckles a knot of bone that catches at her lips. When she switches over to an index finger, she pauses before deciding to experimentally employ her teeth…the slightest scrape across the softest parts. It provokes a breathy exhale.

She starts to feel unexpectedly attractive doing this. The feeling is foreign in some respects. When she feels confident physically it has always been because of her strength, her body…never something so performative. Maybe it is predominantly due to the absolutely penetrating way that Asami is observing her. She can only meet that gaze directly for about half a second before the clench it causes in her stomach is too much. To be considering anything they’re doing or will do too intensely, it’s just not healthy right now anyway.

What she’s doing takes so much of her focus, that she doesn’t notice the hand fall away from her girlfriend’s mouth until Asami is circling one of her nipples with a single finger. The surprisingly gentle touch is a slow assembling thrum. Her eyelids immediately slip closed at the feel of it and she fumbles, sucks in a breath, and loses her rhythm.

“Don’t stop.” The tone is neither plea nor command, is between the two, the natural gravel in girlfriend’s voice coarsened to ground glass.

The sound of it, her acquaintance with the circumstances in which that rasp arises, she refocuses instantly. Kissing her way up from the knuckle, Korra flicks her tongue against the tip of a finger again and Asami hums, pinches her chest in retaliation. Her body steels as she gasps, hands curling to fists when the pinch becomes a roll. A burn spreads across her neck and her body disobediently and greedily slants to push her breast into further contact. This evolves into some momentary contest of will and she tries her best to persevere, to hold in the fugitive moans, but they hitch a ride on her out-breath. With only a little more teasing, she falters, her concentration shattered completely. Her neck turns to rubber, is supported on the taller woman’s shoulder, her back is arching. Asami’s finger slips from her mouth when she full on moans and it pulls her bottom lip down with it briefly. Her girlfriend is then using both hands on her, gently twisting, occasionally rolling her nipples in circles. A fire kindles to life in her abdomen, pulsing and Asami might just have too much foreknowledge about the workings of her body. It might be desperately unfair because Korra’s breath is already hard to find, scattering amid her sighs and pants. She’s chasing it now. 

“Mmph,” The noises muffle when she bites her lip and she can’t stop the shuddering exhales that nearly whistle through her teeth. Her fists are suddenly pushing into her girlfriend’s shoulders as she grapples with her unruly hips. They just won’t stay still. 

“Hands, Korra.” Asami’s voice is barely above a whisper, an odd mashup of seductive and critical and then everything stops abruptly. _Hands?_ The word and the cessation of touch make no sense. Lingering sensation is taking up all the room in her head and she can’t latch onto the whys. Her girlfriend draws back, climbs off her, and is leaning down to grab her shirt from the ground.

“Asami, I…wait…you’re not leaving, are you?!” She feels close to yelling or apologizing, yelling an apology maybe. A stab of panic grips her. _Hands_ …she moved her stupid hands.

The engineer’s head cants and she gives a befuddled smile. “No, but since you can’t seem to keep your hands still yourself, I’m gonna need you to lay down.” In her current state of excitement, she really doesn’t appreciate the poking fun. 

“Well, you weren’t helping.” She snarks, as she settles onto her back, irritated by how unsteady her body is. The level to which she is shaken up, it’s bordering on embarrassing.

The expression she receives raises a bit of worry, as Asami sits beside her atop the low table, placing her discarded shirt down. Korra stares as her girlfriend crosses her legs at the thigh and then extends arms behind her, completely unconcerned about her half-nakedness. That eyebrow is chocked full of attitude again.

“I can stop if you want.” She proposes, as though making a legitimate offer. Korra bites her tongue, barely able to swallow down a clap back. It would be counterproductive when she wants this. Asami is apparently waiting for an answer, so she shakes her head, eyes downcast. The crumpled shirt is then lifted up, examined before her girlfriend places it back down, frowning. “This won’t work.”

It could be for the best that she is not privy to the other woman’s thoughts right now. She decides not to ask and waits as Asami glances toward the entryway. Walking over to where the things removed upon entering were strewn, she picks up the scarf. It’s stretched, and the engineer seems to be evaluating the length. Korra cannot determine what in the world the woman is planning.

Coming back over, Asami shoots her an expectant look, before posing a question. “Where are your hands supposed to be?” 

It occurs to her now, the scarf’s future purpose and she spaces out for a second, short-circuited. “…right, okay.” Korra murmurs to herself, thoroughly disbelieving.

“You don’t have to.” The other woman answers immediately, softly, face softening as well as. This is real concern, not playacting. 

With a huge and shaky inhalation, she meets eyes as boldly as she dares, intertwines the fingers of both her hands, brings her fists backward to return her arms behind her own head. Her girlfriend sits as she does this and fingers curl around the wood of the table. Bright eyes scan the length of her torso and arms. She swallows against the rapt attention. Asami is taking her in, leisurely gaze unfocused and she steals the opportunity to gaze back. The sight of the engineer perched on that table, posture loose, lips nearly nude from their kisses, long hair back, strands falling untamed about her face and wearing just those canvas pants…it’s the woman who built a sand-sailer from airship scraps, who knocked a man clean off his motorcycle mid-fight, drives as though machines are an extension of her being. 

Korra is romantically and sexually acquainted with a softer version, a version she thinks of as hers imbued with the vulnerability that the privacy of their relationship allows. Her mind runs away for a moment, with an inquiry she does not voice…if Asami’s trepidation over this is another offshoot of the ‘supposed to’s’ heaped upon her girlfriend. Women who look like Asami aren’t assumed to be engineers, aren’t assumed to run things, and definitely aren’t supposed to want to tie their significant others to a couch and have their way with them. It’s not the expectation and she wishes she could say she never fell prey to such assumptions. She wonders suddenly, sadly how often Asami gets to be exactly the person she wants to…hopes that her girlfriend truly feels as much herself as she seems to when they’re alone. She thinks the woman really does and their comfort with one another…it’s something she considers a gift. Korra’s also used to her girlfriend’s typical tenderness manifesting from beneath a crafted, classically feminine aesthetic. This less inhibited presentation though…it is certainly appealing too and for different reasons entirely. The power and physical confidence that she’s previously admired and always respected, it’s on full display right now. This particular version she’s seeing tonight, it is one she’s interacted with when far more pressing problems plague them, battles and life-or-death and plans to save the world…but this particular version has never taken her to bed before. The reasons this all feels so different are slotting into place.

“So beautiful…” As Asami whispers it and blinks, she seems to come back to herself suddenly. Korra can’t stop her blush, the color more from the genuineness than the words themselves. It still takes her unaware every time her girlfriend says something remotely like that.

Then Asami is up and moving, leaning over the side of the couch. The woman is wrapping one end of the scarf around the back leg of the furniture piece. The other end is brought up to Korra’s wrists…not just tying them together then, tying her down. It feels a much larger step into this, what they’ve done up till now wading in the shallows. Thankfully overthinking becomes easier to avoid with each sway of Asami’s breasts, which are yet again waking up her skin. A drag along the inside of her extended arm, a tantalizing, too quick brush with the side of her face. She can almost reach one, but they’re gone too quick and she finds herself pouting over the loss. Mostly though, as before, they bump into Korra’s, which are still heightened from the earlier attention. They’re tingling with each graze, while the other woman continues to unconcernedly reach over her, fiddling with her makeshift binding. Asami, for her part, remains entirely concentrated on the issue of the scarf and securing wrists and Korra attempts to minimize the hot and distracting rub of skin-on-skin, with a bit of freshness. 

“A scarf, huh? Kinda expected something more inventive.” She’s not sure how wise it is to push her girlfriend’s buttons, but she kind of wants to, kind of wants to see if she can find a good type of push.

“Limited materials.” Asami remarks with an expression that tries desperately to remain entirely serious. “And you might want to be a little more careful what you choose to complain about. I do have a full workshop at home.” It is a point worth considering, and it gives her pause over her previous haughtiness, a pause that too quickly turns to reckless and poorly shaped clips of fantasy. “Now…” The exclamation is ripe with promise. “Behave and don’t rip that.”

 _Behave_ …another thing she should be aggravated over on principle but isn’t. If anyone else in any other situation had said that to her, she would’ve strongly considered punching them squarely in the face. She can’t let herself think too much on why she’s okay with it, can’t let herself think too much on the fact that she’s more than okay with it right now. Another few torturous seconds elapse and then there is a pull on the scarf, a test which it doesn’t seem to pass. The taller woman grimaces disapprovingly, glancing at seemingly unsatisfactory handiwork before standing beside her bound body. She can move her arms, but only about a foot, so she’s not certain what the problem is. Thumbs then slide over the jut of Korra’s hip bones, fitting themselves there, long fingers wrapping around her sides. 

“Uh…what’re you doing?” She inquires, but there is no answer. Eyes are locked on the armrest of the couch where her hands lay, at the slack scarf wrapped around them. Asami is making some sort of mental assessment. That gaze travels and now they’re watching each other. With a quirk of her lips but no real warning, her girlfriend uses that grip to lift and pull Korra’s body down the couch a short distance. It must’ve been a calculated amount because it is just enough to extend defined arms to their full length. The suddenness stuns a girlish squeak from her, eliciting a tiny laugh.

“That was cute.” Her girlfriend practically croons, with no small amount of satisfaction. Asami then collects herself again, fingers traveling a straight line from triceps to the inside of her bound wrists. “Much better.” 

That tickle of fear she felt when Asami’s hand was near her neck remerges.

Then her knees are pushed up into a flex and she allows it automatically, as though her legs are meant to be spread wide and welcoming. Her topless girlfriend crawls between them, hands on her cloth-covered inner thighs first, then arms coming to rest on either side of her torso. Asami is hovering over her, kissing her for a blissful millionth time, and the pounding in her chest is so strong that it physically hurts. This is not what she was imagining for tonight. This is nothing Korra ever quite imagined and further away still from sucking on fingers…from something she was actively doing. There is no active anything now, except active response which comes with a staggering level of naturalness.

Her throat constricts and this is a lot more and all at once. That she can barely move between her bound arms and the body on top of her, her legs uselessly positioned...it does frighten her, but only a little. Nightmares, poisonings, or paralysis, they don’t run up on her, but they crop up for a moment. She closes her eyes against them, and then that kissing reels her back in. The sensation of being completely out of her depth submerges her consciousness for a millisecond and her thoughts begin to rearrange themselves, assembling into something new. She opens her eyes to a sea of green. There is no great enemy restricting her, it’s just a length of fabric and the woman she loves, who would stop all of this the second she asked. It’s just a scarf that holds her and she can shred it if she needs to. It’s not painful, it’s just mutual pleasure, pleasure she can enhance for both of them by leaving the terms of it in Asami’s capable hands. It’s a thought she’s been sampling all night, but now she lets herself really taste it. She’s choosing this, this is a choice, even if the choice is only to trust and the contents of her mind begin to evaporate in acceptance. Beneath those kisses and hands, errant wanderings condense into drops of hazy warmth, warmth that makes her wrap her legs around Asami’s waist. There is nothing she has to do because these are kisses where she follows, touches she receives, a moment where yielding brings unanticipated catharsis. Remaining wisps of resistant pride fade into the background, taking with them the weight of responsibility. Swaths of lapping sensation bathe her mind and every single one of them is from Asami…nothing and no one else. She lets the name circle her mind as a mantra and the dark behind her now closed lids is solace.

When her clouded eyes do open again, it is because wet lips are dragging along her chest. She glances down despite the discomfort it causes in her neck because seeing Asami do these things, it’s not to be missed. Her idle musings about whether the lipstick would paint her skin seem a lifetime ago, but she has her answer. Hints of faded red dot her chest and breasts. She can’t imagine her girlfriend ever worries about looking pretty when she does things like this…she’s incapable of being anything else. The tiny moan that comes this time when green eyes turn up to capture hers, she doesn’t catch it, doesn’t really try to. Kisses, pressure, licks, and bites…they all come in rounds and only the biting is atypical. But she doesn’t dislike it, not when it’s soft like that, not when it’s uncomfortable in the best of ways, adds a pleasant grit to otherwise even sensation. Forearms push suddenly beneath her torso, palms spreading flat over shoulder blades and she’s being lifted, held up to Asami’s mouth.

“…mine are nowhere near this sensitive,” That voice hums, vibrating against her and full of interest. It hits her like a firework against the night sky. “I’ve always wondered what that’s like for you.” Any calm she found crumbles, leaving her mouth a desert and there isn’t a single thing she can think to say.

The intent scaffolding those statements is realized with painstaking effort. Asami takes her sweet time, spending far longer than she ever has. Tongue, lips, the gentle squeeze of teeth start over again, and those eyes…they each pull something different from Korra…a gasp, a whimper, a swear, a name. Her lids drop and flutter and the noises are just spilling out of her now, unchecked. She can’t find it in herself to care as they all blur together and she buries her too warm face in an extended upper arm. The throbbing, it’s strong enough now to make her shake, make her push up against that worshipful mouth gracelessly. She sucks in air like it’s precious, squirming as everything begins to muddle, becoming some impossibly strong blend of pleasure and ache.

Her breath hitches and she hisses when touch reads suddenly raw. It’s too much and she uses her full strength to writhe away from insistent touch. It causes her girlfriend to stop, to slide up her body, tucking her head into Korra’s neck. The slightest movement of breasts against hers cause a twinge that some time ago moved between her legs as well. It helps nothing when Asami’s hips initiate an unhurried churn against her own as attention is lavished on her pulse point, along her jaw. Constant snaps of blinking color begin to paint the back of Korra’s eyelids as her girlfriend’s hands are drawn out from underneath her. They run firmly up deltoids, arms stretching over hers, fingers creeping to encircle bound wrists, pushing them further into the plush arm of the sofa. Then they’re kissing again. So much kissing tonight, like an anchor in a storm. With the full weight of a body sinking them into cushions, their lips crushing together, Asami grinds against her. It turns Korra on to an embarrassing degree and she’s struck by sudden and powerful mental submersion, something like the split second before sleep overtakes consciousness.

That instinctual sense emerges again, tells her to ask for more, to plead for more. She needs…and badly. Her body is full to bursting with it. “Asami…mmplease, I…” It’s out of her mouth and into her girlfriend’s before she can think, before she can piece together more.

She feels a smile against her lips, a soft question. “Hmm?” Maybe she should’ve predicted that kind of response, the light squeeze to her wrists, but they both take the air from her lungs.

Korra pulls away, saucer-eyed gaze cementing itself deliberately on the ceiling because she can’t cover her own face. Tension and arousal bring sweat to the palms of her hands, the backs of her knees. This, it’s the first thing she has an instant aversion to. She’s sure she doesn’t want to say anything more descriptive because she doesn’t want to hear it from her own mouth, doesn’t know how to phrase it and where she expects a dig, a push…dreads it, her girlfriend unsurprisingly surprises her. 

With a single finger, her chin is tipped down and blue eyes lose themselves in comforting green. “I’m not gonna make you say anything else.” It’s a relief, a blessing that Asami always seems to sense when she’s overwhelmed in a negative way. “But that _‘please’_ was definitely nice.”

“...you liked that?” Her girlfriend only tips her head in silent concession, but in those eyes is a hint of hesitation. That hint, Korra doesn’t like it. With her lip between her teeth, she stares up, uncharacteristic shyness rearing up on her when she makes a decision. She swallows thickly, letting everything pour into the single word she chooses to give…this time very much on purpose. “Please.”

With a lingering, softened glance her girlfriend lifts her own upper body, but only to shift. Asami is lying against Korra’s side, nestled into the small space between her body and the back of the couch. She straightens her legs, lets them relax for a moment, but then fingers reach across her body, landing at the end of her sternum. Without consideration, her eyes dart to where they rest, bounce back up to her girlfriend’s beautiful face, then back down again. Those fingers begin a slow walk down her twitching abdomen, halting at the tie of her pants. The string is drawn up in slow motion, pulled tautly, and tugged lazily until the knot gives audibly. The waist fabric spreads and lays slack, haphazardly gapping now, while those fingers continue their stroll. A little further down, and they dip in stroking glides. Her hips are twitching, begging on their own and a shock of discomfort shoots through as that touch nears where she needs it. She’s very ready, but the amount of teasing, the newness, the way Asami carried herself…she’s not sure she’s ever been quite this aroused before. It’s already too late for such apprehensions though because her girlfriend’s hand is beneath her pants, beneath everything, forgoing any further torment. It’s her own fault for saying _‘please’_ like that, she’s sure.

Those fingers though, they freeze upon discovery. The fact that her excitement stuns Asami to the extent it seems to, it’s a blush burning hot on her cheeks. If she could find her voice right now, the only thing she’d beg for is that her girlfriend not say a word about it.

“Korra…” The name is laced with awe more than anything else, no trace of a tease, and wonderfully not a single other thing is said.

Her girlfriend just gathers herself and the teasing ends for the night. It is impossible to keep her desperate body from moving to meet that hand instantly, as two fingers slip deep into her, thumb circling higher. Asami’s eyes are fixed down the length of her stomach, watching her hips as they roll hard and helpless. Korra degenerates within seconds, straining and landing further outside herself with each thrust. Softer sounds, little groans and sighs of effort that she can hardly hear through the buzz in her brain, they’re spilling over her collarbone. It’s all so incredibly hot, and she might as well be ablaze with how intense it feels. Touches are so firm, so quick and her body keeps encouraging surging tempos, more force…to the point her thighs become a trembling mess from chasing angles. The mounting pressure makes her clench everywhere, eyelids, teeth, abdominals, around those fingers. She tries desperately not to flinch too violently, to stop herself from breaking anything as the couch creaks.

The heated crush implodes suddenly and pleasure rockets across her skin, turning mind and muscles to jelly, leaving a low-grade tingling in its wake. Asami’s hand does not still as she expects it to but shifts to press and curl deeper inside her and her voice breaks, she breaks, wrenches, gasps like the wind was knocked from her. Her knees have flexed themselves, feet flat on the cushion, and her lower body is held rigid in the air. She’s shamelessly riding that hand, having to dig her shoulders into the couch just to hold the position. She’s plummeted over a cliff, would say ‘please’ as many times as the other woman wants to hear…is saying it. Then a second more intense wave hits her, makes her stiff with concentrated sensation. It ripples from inside her, running along limbs and exiting in a guttural moan, stuttered out in fragments as she unravels. Ragged breathing ushers in her afterglow, body shivering, but she can’t relax into it. Not when that hand is retracted and trails wetly across her stomach.

Fabric rustles and she hears a zipper, feels stirring against her leg. Her girlfriend is suddenly using that same hand on herself, much shallower than how she touched Korra. She wants to be doing that instead, at least watching, but she can’t, not with her tied hands and fuzzy mind and their position. Still, she pulls clumsily at the scarf, struggles a little. It doesn’t move at all and the couch whines unhappily again. It would definitely break if she really pulled…

“Asami!” She calls a little frantically, voice cracking from overuse.

But her girlfriend pays no heed, and those sighs are getting harsher and harsher against her clavicle, hips churning rougher against her leg. Toes are curling and digging into her calf as if Asami means to climb her. A sharp gasp tapers to a broken and breathy moan too quickly. It’s so near to her ear that it pulls goosebumps from nearly every inch of Korra’s skin. She lets out a small noise of her own, a whimpering huff of half-hearted protest.

While she’s hunting for the last of her bearings, Asami has somehow sleepily hauled her body up to work at Korra’s wrists. Uncoordinated fingers complicate easy work, but her girlfriend does manage to free the knot with some effort. Once released, her arms are close to boneless from the strain. Still, she finds the wherewithal to drop one to her chest, the other curling loosely around her girlfriend. She uses up the last of her vigor to collapse them together deliberately. Asami flops against her side with an ‘oomph’ and a contented chuckle, draping a still clothed thigh across her body. The hand that was on her heart trails down to rest on the woman’s knee where it hangs over the side of her own stomach.

They hold each other, and Asami’s gentle hand moves her hair from her face. “Are you okay?” 

She can tell that her nuzzling girlfriend is asking quite a bit with that familiar question than a simple check-in. She doesn’t try for anything fancy, because she can’t put to words what that was like just yet. “Whatever’s better than okay.” It’s undetailed but honest. 

Asami seems satisfied with it in any case, sinks further into her, melting and clutching her a little tighter. A featherlight kiss is placed on her shoulder. “…you were so good to me tonight.” The emotion and appreciation in that whispered sentiment, she has so many questions…has trouble believing Asami feels all of what she seems to only because she let her try something they both wanted, that it could mean so much to her. She wasn’t even able to reciprocate properly. 

“I didn’t even get to touch you.” She knows it might be silly to say but wants to be clear that was definitely her plan.

There’s another laugh which makes it obvious her girlfriend hadn’t thought twice about it. “…next time?” Korra can hear that the other woman is not feeling completely confident.

That it’s a question makes her wonder how Asami has any doubt she’d want this to stay a part of their lives. “That better be a promise.”

**END.**


End file.
